Sunday, January 16, 2011

"Bankers " school keeps out the poor

A CONDEM flagship school set up by fatcat bankers is refusing to take poor kids.Pupils from a council estate primary are banned from Bolingbroke Academy in Battersea, South London, although it will cost taxpayers £6million a year.

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Pupils from a struggling primary that lies on a deprived council estate have been told there will be no place for them at a ConDem free school being set up with backing from City fatcats.Yet those at four others in wealthier parts of the same area have been singled out as feeders for Bolingbroke Academy – dubbed the bankers’ school – when it opens next year.

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Labour MP Lisa Nandy said: “This is a shocking indictment on the Government’s policy on free schools, transferring money from the poor to the rich.

“Labour and teaching unions warned about this when the legislation was passed.” Bolingbroke Academy, being built on the site of a former hospital in Battersea, is supported by leading City finance firms.Among them are NM Rothschild, Credit Suisse, Citi Group, Barclays Capital, Coutts, Normura, HSBC, Morgan Stanley and RBS.Tory-controlled Wandsworth council is spending £13million buying the site and more public cash will be needed to convert it into a school. Taxpayers face an estimated £6million yearly bill for running the academy.

The move has sparked fury among teachers and union chiefs. GMB spokesman Paul Maloney said bankers who had to be bailed out with billions of pounds of taxpayers’ cash had “acquired a taste for using public money to fund their pet projects”.